Program Overview

Diploma in Arts
The Diploma in Arts provides a pathway into the Bachelor of Arts degree. A qualification in the Arts can cover a broad range of humanities subjects from writing and literature, to studies of other cultures, religions and languages. It can also enable you to access a pathway to Teaching with up to one-year equivalent advanced standing. Furthermore, this course offers a foundation unit in Academic English that provides an additional skills base for tertiary level study.

Articulation to Western Sydney University
Students successfully completing the Diploma in Arts will be granted entry into the second year of a Bachelor of Arts course at Western Sydney University.

Leading to: Bachelor of Arts
We’ve redesigned the Bachelor of Arts so you can get the most out of this program. Step outside the classroom and get real-world experience with an internship. Travel overseas and get credit towards your degree with a study abroad program. Find a meaningful community service project. At Western, you’re not just learning how to make a difference in the world. You’re doing it.

Major: Peace and Development Studies
The Peace and Development Studies major is concerned with methods for promoting peace, human rights and sustainability. It involves a critical analysis of inequalities of power and opportunity that lead to international and local conflict, social dislocation and environmental degradation. Students will examine the structural causes of racist and gendered violence, environmental crises, forced migration, poverty, resource conflict, and inter-generational inequity.

The inter-related network of solutions includes empowerment and self-determination, sustainable living, constructive development, peacemaking and peace building.

These require understanding of the theories and method for identifying, measuring and resolving conflict and environmental degradation. The assumptions and failings of traditional development practice are critically assessed. Students will engage social theory within an interdisciplinary and applied framework, at local, national and international levels.

The major is comprised of three fields:

• Structural inequality, social justice & human rights
• Development and sustainability
• Peace and humanitarian responses/actions.